D: In Berlin you can have anything. German cuisine, Italian, Turkish, Yugoslav, Chinese, French, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Arabic and also more exotic things... I would just recommend against Mexican.

A: Okay, but you will have to help me to find something yummy. I don't know anything about German cuisine.

D: Ich helfe dir gerne.

D: I will gladly help you.

POST CONVERSATION BANTER

Judith: Definitely, it’s true that there are lots and lots of foreign restaurants in Berlin, including some really exotic ones, for example offering Cuban, Sri Lankan or Nepali food.

Chuck: Yeah, I’d say Mexican food is chic and readily available but not really authentic at all because, well, it’s mostly Germans or Turks preparing the food. There’re not nearly enough Mexicans in Germany to fuel the demand for tacos, burritos, nachos and salsa. But then again, they might have a special taste considering the place where I grew up was the best Mexican restaurant in Pennsylvania.

Judith: On the other hand, Thai food is so popular that even your neighborhood Europeanized Chinese restaurant will probably offer a few Thai dishes. And you will find frozen, ready-made Thai dishes in your supermarket.

Chuck: You’ll also notice that [Mango Lassi], an Indian kind of milkshake, is available not just at Indian restaurant, but at just about every Asian restaurant and some Turkish ones. But you have to notice that this is really just for Berlin. I mean if you leave Berlin and go to another city and try to order a [Mango Lassi], they’ll probably just give you a funny stare.

Judith: Yeah, particularly in smaller towns, Italian, Turkish and Europeanized Chinese are the only foreign foods you can easily get.

Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.

VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE

Judith: The first word we look at is [Worauf]. Here we have the same rules that we had for the prefix [Da] and [Dar]. So you use [Wo] and a related preposition to create question words like [Worauf].

Chuck: On what.

Judith: [Worüber]

Chuck: About what.

Judith: [Wofür]

Chuck: For what.

Judith: And so on. Another point is that, well, we have a lot, a lot of nationalities and types of cuisine in this dialogue and they didn’t appear in the vocabulary list because we’ll be talking about them in the grammar point. And that’s right now.

Chuck: So let’s get right to the grammar point.

LESSON FOCUS

Chuck: Let’s look at the regularities between the names of nations, the nationality adjectives and the people who live there.

Judith: First of all, because this is a German course, the word for Germany is [Deutschland], the adjective [Deutsch] and the person is called a [Deutscher] or [Deutsche] for feminine. [This scheme] doesn’t work for any other nation. Another [Scheme] is, for example, [Russland].

Chuck: Russia.

Judith: The adjective is [Russisch] and the person would be called [Russe]. This is the same as for [Irland].

Chuck: Ireland.

Judith: The adjective [Irisch] and the person [Ire]. [Russland, russisch, Russe, Irland, irisch, Ire] You can already notice similarity that we always have the ending in [Isch]. Then there’s a big group, for example [Italien].

Chuck: Italy.

Judith: [Italien, italienisch, Italiener same as Indien, indisch, Inder, Saudi-Arabien, arabisch, Araber] Adjectives end in [Isch] and the person ends in [Er]. We also have countries like [Spanien].

Chuck: Spain.

Judith: [Spanisch, Spanier] this also works. Basically all the countries that end in EN work exactly like this. And, of course, [Amerika] works like this. [Amerika, amerikanisch, Amerikaner] Then there’s [A scheme that is mostly for] obscure countries. For example, [China].

Chuck: China.

Judith: Ok, this is maybe not so obscure but it’s the most prominent member of this group. [China, chinesisch, Chinese] And also [Nepal], for example. [Nepal, nepalesisch, Nepalese] So when you have something in “Ese” in English, then in German it would be [Esisch and Ese] for the person. There’s a difference in German between Nepalese the adjective and Nepalese the person.

Chuck: One easy thing is that language names, like Chinese and Japanese, are always the same as the adjectives for the nationality, except they capitalize as nouns in German when the adjectives are not.

Judith: That’s right. Be sure to watch your capitalization.

OUTRO

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